I wonder if we should focus more on gliders with electric auxiliary engines only, and use a launch system that stays on the airport of departure. Kinetic aviation, if you will.

It certainly reduces the weight of the plane if it doesn't need to carry its initial propulsion system for the entire flight.

A linear motor the length of the runway? I wonder what the 0-300mph time could get down to.

I doubt a static launch system would introduce enough energy to make the battery savings worth it. Most of the energy during flight is spent maintaining speed while climbing to altitude. The linear rail gives you a lot of speed, but zero altitude.

Still, there might be some weight gains that come from reducing the motor's peek power requirements, and those multiply across the entire flight.

I was wondering if it could worth implementing a two-stage system. The booster stage contains a lot of batteries, extra motors and a beefed up landing gear. The booster batteries contain enough power to get the aircraft up to it's cruising altitude before detaching and more or less gliding back to the departure airport. All the second stage would have to do is maintain cruising altitude for the rest of the flight then land.

They do something like that for aircraft carriers. But sailplanes use winches, which are a lot cheaper.

There’s a kernel of a good idea there, particularly for cargo. I’ve had similar thoughts.

Do batteries that can power a plane for routes like this exist yet? I know nothing about aviation, but I always thought the energy needed to spin up a turbine, or prop, is immense.

We’re building such planes now. https://twitter.com/GovInslee/status/1440442441920774146

The batteries are plenty powerful. We’re limited in energy to about 500-1000 miles unless we use better aerodynamics, etc.

There are a lot of aircraft designs in the pipeline at the moment, using current tech as far as I know.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVTOL